Part 3, S. Dakota Trip

S. Dakota Day 7

Today we drove through part of Custer State Park. We passed through the three narrow tunnels on the way. The price to enter Custer SP is very reasonable at 6 dollars a person or 15 dollars per car whichever is cheaper. The pass is good for seven days. The scenery in the park is beautiful and there certainly are a lot of buffalo in the park. Similar to Yellowstone NP, the buffalo like to walk on the roadway causing traffic jams. There are plenty of other animals in the park and easy to see from the road. Some of the campgrounds in the park looked very nice and if we ever return to the Black Hills we might stay within the park.

There were plenty of buffalo in Custer State Park.

S. Dakota Day 8

I woke up at 4 in the morning freezing to death. The outside temperature was 41 degrees and it was 61 in our Wildcat. I wasted no time turning on the furnace.
My bad! We arrived at Jewel Cave National Monument at 9:30 thinking we would do the tour. Since we didn’t have reservations they couldn’t get us in on a tour until 1:30 PM. It never dawned on me that we would need reservations. It was just as well though, when the park ranger described the tour we wanted to take as strenuous and required navigating 720 steps, I decided that it might be a bit more than I could handle. Instead we drove back to the 1880 Old West Town and paid 5 dollars for the audio tour. A tourist trap to be sure, but still very interesting.

The 1880's town called 4 Mile.

S. Dakota Day 9

At 42 degrees it was another cold morning but the “Cat’s” furnace kept us warm and toasty.
Today we drove to Bear Country USA near Rapid City, SD. Bear Country is both a drive-thru and a walk thru park that contains animals of North America and over 100 bears. There were certainly plenty of bears to see.

Most of the bears were very active as we drove through the park.

In the afternoon we drove back to Custer State Park again and spent the rest of the day there. Driving back to the campground we passed through the town of Custer, SD and you just never know what you are going to see. I thought the motorcycle and trailer pictured below were very interesting and worth sharing.

I have no idea what was in the coffin. Perhaps camping gear or maybe a buddy he took to Sturgis one last time.